Arguments for and against using negative advertising

Negative advertising is difficult to define; James and Hensel (1991) describe negative advertising as a different form of comparison with the intention of harming the reputation of the competition or opposing idea, whether in politics or brand advertising. Directory Journal (2012) simplifies negative advertising as when an advertisement ‘tells you what not to do’. There are increasingly different opinions on the argument for and against use of this type of often emotive advertising.

 
Negative advertising is mostly seen in the lead up to a political election as opponents try to discredit their opposition in order to gain more votes. As Roller (2014) points out, with each election passed there is an increasing use of negative advertising, which she believes is due to negative advertising being more memorable. This is certainly the view of Denari (2014), who believes that not only do we remember negativity more than positivity, it also attracts more attention and is more influential. To say that negative advertising will have more of an effect on the public is not to say this is beneficial. Gabbatt (2012) has the view that negative advertising has a negative effect on voters; instead of encouraging support instead this type of advertising discourages voters to vote. ThisNation.com (no date) support this through drawing attention to how the majority of voters are increasingly concerned about the personal political attacks and how this causes voters to lose trust in all of the politicians. The advert below (image one) run by Barack Obama against Mitt Romney in the USA 2012 elections is an example of negative advertising that could be considered to just be a personal attack because it gives no fact, just a negative impression of Romney. White (2010) seems to disagree and that negative advertising does have its place; whilst the voters may not like it, he argues that it is most effective when it is just stating a belief we already hold. This could perhaps apply to this advert because it may already be the belief of voter that Romney will not provide any solutions. Based on the view that voters are not happy with the increasing negative advertising, it would seem that though it may be widely used, it could be considered that it isn’t always the best advertising to use.

Image one (Hopehering 2013)

  Another approach to negative advertising, raised by Penn (2012), is that it is not the case of whether this type of advertising is good or bad but instead is based on whether negative advertising is done in the right way of not. In terms of political advertising, Penn (2012) believes that done correctly, negative adverts will raise truthful points and questions that otherwise the public might not discover. Furthermore, Penn (2012) goes on to claim that if negative advertising is done incorrectly then it will have a ‘boomerang effect’ where the negative opinion will come on the opponent; in this way negative advertising is perceived to only be a good thing. An example of this is the advertisement shown below, image two, by the Conservative party against the Labour party in the 2010 UK elections; it could be seen that they are reminding the public of this truthful statistic to question Labour.

Image two (the Guardian 2010)

 As previously mentioned, comparison adverts could be considered negative as they are showing the competitor up. Done in the right way, for example with humour, these adverts could actually make a brand more likeable whilst making the competitor less positive. An example are the Aldi supermarket comparison adverts (image three) beginning in 2011, in which they show their competitor to be more expensive in comparison whilst using humour to make their brand perceived better. Bloom (2015) reports that these adverts had the best recall; it is assumed that this is because the public liked these adverts. Mukherjee and Dubé (2012) discuss that comedy in an advert will increase persausaion, in this case customers. Writer (2011) supports this assumption through claiming Aldi’s market share increased after this advertisements.

Image three (Astonfosh 2011)

Another description of negative advertising is that is it used to try and persuade people to not do something; a tactic often used by the government regarding issues such as smoking and obesity. Below is a billboard advert produced by Public Health England in 2014 (image four) which demonstrates this using an extremely negative image of rotting flesh in an attempt to scare people to stop smoking. Cooper (2014) discusses how some feel that the shock tactic used in this emotive advert is to ‘scaremonger’, and perhaps scaring the target audience is not the best way to engage with them. It could be considered that because people do not like feeling a negative emotion such as fear, they will disengage with this sort of advertisement. This idea is supported by Mukherjee and Dubé (2012) who draw on past research to discuss how making the audience feel these negative emotion in fact elicits a defensive response, where the advertisement because less persuasive. An example of this could be the target audience purposefully avoidance adverts like this, such as changing the television channel when emotive negative advert comes on.

Image Four (The Guardian 2014)

In conclusion, whilst negative advertising is more memorable than positive advertising and can help to portray a negative view of the competition there are drawbacks. This increasingly popular type of advertising can actually damage the own brand image, especially in politics, because the public can view it as dishonest, losing trust in both opponents. As Dresen (2011) points out, there is a fine line when using negative advertising for it to be useful or not; making their competitors look bad whilst maintaining an image that doesn’t appear ‘mean-spirited’.  On the other hand, as previously discussed, negative advertising is becoming widely used which hints that it must be successful. When used with humour successful negative advertising can result in an increased market share, as demonstrated by Aldi but when eliciting too much of a negative emotion, such as fear, it can cause the audience to disengage with the advert. Whether or not the arguments against advertising outweigh the arguments for, it is apparent that the public is only to see an increase in the use of it.


                                                                                                                                                        

Reference List:

Astonfosh (2011) Aldi Tea Advert [online] available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCKgCkubGc0 [accessed 04/03/2015]

 Bloom, D (2015) Aldi wins ANOTHER supermarket battle after its no-frills advertising campaign with no stars or special effects is found to be last year's 'most effective' The Daily Mail [online] available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2901724/Aldi-wins-supermarket-battle-no-frills-advertising-campaign-no-stars-special-effects-year-s-effective.html [accessed 04/03/2015] 

Cooper, C (2014) Anti-smoking adverts accused of 'scaremongering' The Independent [online] available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/antismoking-adverts-accused-of-scaremongering-9947516.html [accessed 04/03/2015] 

Deneri, T (2014) Negative Ads Might Just Be Positive for Your Brand Advertising Age[online] 

available from: http://adage.com/article/agency-viewpoint/negative-ads-positive-brand/295692/ [accessed 04/03/2015]

 Directory Journal (2012) Most Persuading and Scaring Examples of Negative Advertising Directory Journal [online] available from: http://www.dirjournal.com/business-journal/negative-advertising-examples/ [accessed 04/03/2015]

 Dresen, B (2011) The pros and cons of negative and comparative advertising [online] available from: http://www.gala-marketlaw.com.previewdns.com/joomla4/pdfs/050052IPMOctober2011Feat.pdf [accessed 04/03/2015]

 hopehering (2013) Balancing Negative Advertising [online] available from: https://talkingpoliticsjomc.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/balancing-negative-advertising/ [accessed 04/03/2015]  

Gabbatt, A (2012) Democrats and Republicans' negative advertising prompts growing backlash The Guardian [online] available from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/14/democrats-republicans-negative-advertising-backlash [accessed 04/03/2015]

James, K, & Hensel, P (1991) 'Negative Advertising: The Malicious Strain of Comparative Advertising', Journal Of Advertising [online] 20, 2, 53-69 available from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.worc.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=bd3e7b45-feb8-4280-9d35-3492bc9f31a2%40sessionmgr4003&vid=1&hid=4101 [accessed 04/03/2015]  

Mukherjee, A. & Dubé, L (2012) Mixing emotions: The use of humor in fear advertising Journal of Consumer Behaviour [online] 11, 2 147-161 available from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.worc.ac.uk/doi/10.1002/cb.389/abstract [accessed 04/03/2015] 

 Penn, M (2012) The Case for Negative Campaign Ads Time[online] available from: http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/23/the-case-for-negative-campaign-ads-2/ [accessed 04/03/2015]

 Roller, E (2014) Believe It Or Not, 2014’s Political Ads Have Been More Negative Than Ever National Journal [online] available from: http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/believe-it-or-not-2014-s-political-ads-have-been-more-negative-than-ever-20140917 [accessed 04/03/2015] 

 This Nation (no date) Do negative campaign ads work? [online] available from: http://www.thisnation.com/question/031.html [accessed 04/03/2015]

 White, M (2010) We all hate negative advertising but it often works  The Guardian [online] Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2010/mar/29/negative-advertising-michael-white [accessed 04/03/2015]

Write, S (2011) New Aldi ads highlight brand-like quality The Drum[online] available from: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2011/02/14/new-aldi-ads-highlight-brand-quality [accessed 04/03/2015]

 Image one: hopehering (2013) Balancing Negative Advertising [online] available from: https://talkingpoliticsjomc.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/balancing-negative-advertising/ [accessed 04/03/2015]

 Image Two: White, M (2010) We all hate negative advertising but it often works  The Guardian [online] Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2010/mar/29/negative-advertising-michael-white [accessed 04/03/2015]

Image Three: Astonfosh (2011) Aldi Tea Advert [online] available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCKgCkubGc0 [accessed 04/03/2015]

 Image four: Cooper, C (2014) Anti-smoking adverts accused of 'scaremongering' The Independent [online] available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/antismoking-adverts-accused-of-scaremongering-9947516.html [accessed 04/03/2015]